Search Results for: Research

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

CHINA looks to be a likely candidate for the first country in the world to approve genetically modified rice, despite the fact that the State Agricultural GM Crop Biosafety Committee, a technical body which evaluates GM rice for research, did not approve the idea at its three-day meeting in Beijing, December 10-12, 2005.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

THE CANADIAN government has followed in the footsteps of the European Union (EU) by banning the use of lead acetate in progressive hair dyes namely, Grecian Formula 16 (Canadian sister of the fabled Grecian 2000 Cream in the UK).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice’s (ECJ) Court of First Instance has dismissed a legal claim brought by Italian car seller Autosalone Ispra against the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) alleging it was liable for flood damage. It is a neighbour of the European Union’s (EU) Joint Research Centre’s (JRC) nuclear research unit at Ispra, Italy, which provided an excavator to Ispra’s mayor in 1992 to work on a nearby drain.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE WORLD is waking up to biofuels, increasingly produced from food crops and their waste by-products, and now one of the growing energy alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. As prices for traditional energy rise year on year, and energy watchers warn of oil production peaking around 2010, governments are looking towards food producers to grow the raw feedstock for the fuel of the twenty-first century.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TONY Blair has been attacked by the chairman of the European Parliament’s research committee for failing to secure a better deal for researchers within the European Union’s (EU) medium term ‘financial perspectives’ budget, that was agreed last Friday.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DUTCH scientists have shown that bird flu vaccines could effectively halt the disease’s spread, as well as providing protection to individual vaccinated poultry. Tests carried out by the Central Institute for Animal Disease Control in Leystad, and Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands showed that two weeks after vaccination, two vaccines could "completely block the spread of the disease".…

BY HEIDE NEWSON, in Brussels

THE EUROPEAN Commission faced a rumble of discontent this week in Brussels from Europe’s social scientists over their share of funding from the proposed seventh framework research programme (FP7) for 2007-13. Participants warned their important role in achieving the Lisbon Process goal of transforming Europe into the world’s most dynamic, knowledge-based economy was at risk of being overlooked.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

NURSES at Birmingham Heartlands hospital are excited about the potential time saved in spotting superbug infections through the ground-breaking electronic nose now on trial there. Charge nurse Peter Sutton, who works at the hospital’s intensive care unit, told the Nursing Standard:

"It’s still very much at the trial stage, but being able to spot an infection in 15 minutes rather than the standard 24 to 48 hours will make a great difference to patient control.…

BY MARK ROWE AND PAUL COCHRANE

INTRODUCTION

JUST as chocolate sells well in cold countries, so do soft drinks flourish in hot countries, which would suggest that North Africa and the Levant presents an inviting face to the international drinks market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PROMOTORS of a European Commission-supported research project encouraging municipalities across Europe to establish local broadband services say their four trials have proved a success. The scheme is especially designed to help local authorities seed new comms tech investment in zones deemed too remote by commercial service providers for investing in infrastructure.…